Is there any ECs that will make-up for poor grades?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hello:
I just have the most randomest question ever. IS there any ECs that one can do to make the Adcom at the top tier colleges disregard your grades or not to look at them as heavily?</p>

<p>I am a junior now so obviously I am not trying to do something amazing between now and november. Besides, I am not smart either. I am just asking this out of curousity. </p>

<p>And please avoid answers like "cure for Aids/HIV, cure for cancer, gold medalist, daddy is a billionarie, etc." </p>

<p>thanks.</p>

<p>Motto.</p>

2

<p>Depends on how low the grades are.</p>

<p>3.7/3.8 - yea i think you can make up for this, maybe by winning some national competitions or something</p>

<p>around 3.0 - I dont know, probably not.</p>

3

<p>Sports - recruited athlete</p>

4

<p>If you're not a star athlete or a urm with an ADDITIONAL hook, there isn't any ec that will make up for poor grades.</p>

<p>When are you people going to learn that you can't go out and pretend to do something real quick just so your app looks good. If you haven't invested in a sincere ec by now, then trying to impress an adcom just isn't going to happen!</p>

5

<p>The above poster is correct - you need to be a recruited athlete or a minority with something else very unique (probably not even minority + legacy would be enough).</p>

6

<p>Hmm, sorry if I sounded like one of the bad guys. </p>

<p>I am a junior now, I dont have good ECs and I dont plan on getting any more ECs....</p>

<p>I was just curious about that question...</p>

<p>Motto.</p>

7

<p>Do some big fundraising event, raise 10k and that should help alot.</p>

8

<p>Join a foriegn exchange club, enter speech competitions *actually win, and go on a foriegn exchange trip!</p>

9

<p>Your amount of ECs depends on the college you want to go to.</p>

<p>You don't need ECs to get accepted into many schools. If you're talking Top 25 caliber, then yes you do need ECs because every applicant has great stats. But most admissions are statistics based and will take applicants regardless of ECs as long as they have something going on in their life.</p>

10

<p>3.7/3.8-you can only make that one up with NATIONAL competitions? </p>

<p>Anyway, life is exciting.</p>

11

<p>are u talking 3.7 UW or W, cause UW GPA's like that get accepted to the Ivy's all de time</p>

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<p>if your last name is kennedy that will help a lot</p>

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<p>I think if you do something good that no other high school kids have the ability to do, that equals a hook.</p>

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<p>Intel Finalist</p>

15

<p>sports... recruited athlete;)</p>

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<p>someone in my school with a 3.5 W gpa got into princeton cuz he was like, top 10 in the nation in rowing</p>

17

<p>Shadow a banker at Barclays Capital at London. That's pretty impressive.</p>

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<p>Its costly too :(</p>

19

<p>So I think there are 6 different things you can do that will help you "mask" your poor grades...</p>

<p>You need;
1. National/international level athlete</p>

<ol>
<li><p>National/international level science and other awards(international MUN winner, Siemen, etc)</p></li>
<li><p>Publish a NY times best selling book</p></li>
<li><p>Do an ultra-impressive internship and have the person write a glowing rec( not on of those internship you do at your dad's work filing papers and staple docs)</p></li>
<li><p>Discover a new theory, as in a new science or math theory or whatver....</p></li>
<li><p>become a self-made millionarie or somewhere pretty close to it</p></li>
</ol>

<p>So I guess other than that, there are really no great ECs that will push you the extra mile...</p>

<p>Ben.</p>

20

<p>People get into Harvard with 3.0 because of their ECs once in a while.</p>

<p>But by EC, I mean they're Olympic Gold Medalists who are the best in the world at a certain sport...</p>